Introducing a second dog.

Léan

Hi all,

looking for a bit of advice here.

So my sister picked up a stray dog in Cork City the other day, we've checked all the rescues, he's been brought to the vet, no chip, put in on the web etc... but no avail in finding an owner so far. He has the sweetest temperment, very calm and gentle, he's not neutered, we reckon he's some sort of yorkie/shih tzu/terrier mix and about 2 or 3 years of age. We're fostering him for now but if the owner doesn't turn up, we'd very much like to keep him, that is if we can manage to get him and our 2 year old resident dog Cato (GSD X, neutered) to get a long.

We only got the little fella yesterday evening so we tried to do a brief introduction on neutral ground, which didn't go so well and they were kept separated for the rest of the night.

Today we brought them to the local park together, there were no spats, they had a long walk, they were out for about 2 hours, walking side by side all quite friendly, but as soon as we got through the back gate of the house Cato flipped. He's become quite territorial it would seem.

I know this process can take time, and sometimes it might not work at all, so i'm looking for any advice as how to make this run a little smoother, but at the moment it's proving very stressful. They hear each other every so often in the house and all hell breaks loose with barking. It's extremely loud.

This is going to sound a bit mad but I swear Cato wouldn't even look at me last night, he's really put out about the whole thing. It's just been him for the last two years and he's not impressed with the newbie at all. He's a very social dog and loves the company of other dogs but just not on his turf . The little fella isn't bothered by any of this, he seems really content to just have a roof over his head, but Cato is certainly very upset, obviously if i can't sort this out in the next few days i'l have to find a different foster home for the small guy.

Any advice appreciated.

aonb

so very kind of you and your sister to try to take this little dog in. I HOPE you can get around Cato's issues and things will settle down with the new addition. My youngest dog has a MAJOR problem with strange dogs in HIS home. Constant growling/pushing them away (literally)/stressing. We had a foster dog for a week (luckily a home found quickly for him) - an unneutered male lurcher - it was sooooooooooo stressful and worrying with our pesky young dog, all I can say is that by the end of the week it was much better. It will take time, but hopefully the dog behaviour experts will be along very soon to you with sound advise. VERY GOOD LUCK to you all!

Mince Pie

I have just adopted a dog (a terrier x but much larger than a yorkie, more schnauzer size) and been doing the introduction thing with my established lurcher.
I'm not sure how much size comes into it but the advice I was given was lots of walks together to help with bonding. Not sure how feasible that is though with a GSD x and your new little one.
How are you feeding them? where are they sleeping?
My two have had a few spats that looked awful but were over as quick as they started. They are getting on great now and chasing each other round the sitting room having a whail of a time.
I'm not sure keeping them separate all the time is going to help but there are infinitely much better people on here to give advice.

good luck with it and fair play to you for taking the little one in. Hopefully they will find a way to get on.

Léan

At the moment they're both sleeping and being fed in separate rooms. I'd love to have them together for even just an hour at a time, but it all kicks off with the GSD X.

From everything i've read alright people say just let them have a few spats and they'l sort if out amongst themselves, but it's just the size issue, Cato is about 3 times the size of the little guy and I know the small one is probably well able to defend himself too but it's hard to know how it will go down.

We're going to take them out for another good walk now in a bit so hopefully more progress will be made. There was a bit of an improvement last night alright, no barking at bed time, it went on until 4.am the previous night.

aonb

I wouldnt be willing to let a GSD X and a Terrier x have a spat - as you say, it could go very badly wrong. Could you put a gate of some sort between two rooms, so that they can see each other but cant make contact. This works when Im introducing new hens (!!!) and did it too when we had our rescue lurcher and our territorial terrier was having fits. Hopefully since the GSD was a bit calmer the 2nd night, it will continue to improve. You can understand where the resident dog is coming from - lots of fuss and TLC for him to help him understand that the new arrival is nothing to worry about will hopefully help.